Autonomous Precision Blueberry Harvesting Platform | Farm Robotics Challenge

As skilled agricultural labor becomes harder to find and costs continue to climb, specialty crop growers need practical, affordable automation solutions. This innovative project introduces an autonomous $26,500 blueberry harvesting prototype built to scale efficiently from small family farms to large-scale operations. Specialty crop production relies heavily on highly time-sensitive operational timelines, and harvesting blueberries stands out as one of the most labor-dependent jobs in agriculture. Growers face an ongoing challenge: ripe fruits must be picked during tight harvest windows, or delays will rapidly decrease overall fruit quality and farm profitability. With skilled hand labor becoming increasingly expensive and difficult to secure, the industry requires an automated solution that is practical, efficient, and financially accessible for both small family farms and large-scale operations. To solve this problem, a student design team from the University of California, Merced, engineered an autonomous, precision blueberry harvesting platform. Built on top of the commercial Amiga Navigation Stack using a custom software wrapper, the autonomous system utilizes an onboard Jetson brain, PoE switch, and a GPS antenna to navigate orchard rows safely and independently. To enable precise crop mapping, the team integrated a dual-camera system: a front-facing camera counts the berries before harvesting, while a rear-facing camera checks how many remain on the bush. By cross-referencing these visual counts with localized GPS data, the robot estimates field yield variations and dynamically adjusts its mechanical shaking tool intensity in real time. The mechanical harvesting system uses an adjustable vibration tool designed to penetrate the dense plant canopy without tangling or damaging the bush, delivering localized excitation that selectively removes ripe fruit while leaving unripe berries attached. The falling berries are caught by a custom food-safe collection mechanism—featuring a stainless steel tray lined with padded foam, a waterproof cover, and a flexible bumper that conforms directly to the plant's shape—which funnels the fruit safely into replaceable bins. Designed with future mirrored expansion in mind to harvest both sides of a row simultaneously, the current modular prototype was built using commercially available components for a total estimated cost of $26,500. Operating at a fieldwork speed of 1,500 row feet per hour, this student-led innovation can offset up to four manual workers, offering growers a projected economic payback period of roughly 48 working days under typical California labor costs. ABOUT THE FARM ROBOTICS CHALLENGE The Farm Robotics Challenge is an international student engineering design competition where student teams work directly with farmers to identify real agricultural challenges. Teams design, prototype, and field-test innovative solutions integrating farm robots, drones, sensors, cameras, AI-powered software, and precision agriculture technologies. Ready to get involved? Whether you're a student, educator, or an industry partner, we invite you to join the Farm Robotics Challenge community. Explore the 2026 award-winning projects →    • 2026 Div I Winners & Finalists | Farm Robo...   Get updates → https://www.farmroboticschallenge.ai/... Talk to us about being a sponsor → https://www.farmroboticschallenge.ai/... ORGANIZERS UC ANR Innovate UC ANR Innovate brings together people, resources and ideas to accelerate agricultural, food and biotech innovation in California. They develop practical technologies, generate research and policy insights, prepare a future-ready workforce and build the ecosystems and partnerships that make innovation possible. The AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems (AIFS) AIFS is a USDA-NIFA-funded research institute leveraging artificial intelligence to solve the world’s biggest challenges to crop and food production ensuring a sustainable, nutritious, efficient and safe food supply: https://aifs.ucdavis.edu. INNOVATION PARTNER The Reservoir The Reservoir is a startup incubator and venture capital fund focused on helping ag tech startups succeed where agriculture happens—in the field. By combining R&D space, hands-on grower input and early-stage capital, the Reservoir helps turn promising ideas into tools for the growers who feed the world. Learn more at https://reservoir.co. TECHNOLOGY PARTNER Bonsai Robotics Bonsai Robotics is reimagining the agricultural industry with its AI-first platform that makes autonomous farming affordable, easy to use, and deployable across all farm equipment – whether retrofitted onto existing machines or built into next generation solutions. Learn more at www.bonsairobotics.ai. SPONSORS Morrison Foerster, Western Growers Association, F3 Innovate, Plug and Play, Beck’s, Linak #BlueberryHarvesting #AgriculturalRobotics #PrecisionAgriculture #AutonomousHarvester